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Welcome to the schedule of poetry events happening in Massachusetts! This schedule contains events happening all over the state, as entered by our Poetry Partners and others. It is not limited to Mass Poetry events. To submit an event, click here. For more questions regarding our calendar, you can email marketing@masspoetry.org
strong>Boston/Cambridge [clear filter]
Thursday, November 30
 

7:00pm EST

An Evening of Poetry: Rachel DeWoskin, Robert Pinsky, & Kirun Kapur
Thursday November 30, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
In person at Brookline Booksmith! Join us for an evening of poetry with Rachel DeWoskin, Robert Pinsky, & Kirun Kapur.
Thursday November 30, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Brookline Booksmith
 
Thursday, December 14
 

7:00pm EST

CANON, CANYON, CANNON: WELL DRESSED
Thursday December 14, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Join us for an evening of poetry and performance curated by Porsha Olayiwola, Boston Poet Laureate, Gardner Museum Artist-In-Residence, and Neighborhood Salon Luminary, and featuring leading artists Danez Smith, Chrysanthemum, Jarvis Subia, and Imani Davis.
These poets invite us to consider questions of influence and find new meaning through language and performance. This canon’s theme, "Well Dressed: Public Self/Private Self," is inspired by the Museum’s fall exhibitions Fabiola Jean Louis: Rewriting History, Inventing Isabella and Carla Fernández’s newly commissioned work for the Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade.
Poets will read poems exploring the public persona and the poetic confessional tradition. Come dressed to express your inner self, creativity, and wildest dreams.
Thursday December 14, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum
 
Thursday, January 4
 

6:00pm EST

Lesley January Reading Series Presents: Carl Phillips
Thursday January 4, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Poetry reading by Carl Phillips at the Marran Theatre at Lesley University, located at 34 Mellen Street, in Cambridge, MA.

Thursday January 4, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Marran Theater 34 Mellen St, Cambridge, MA 02138
 
Saturday, January 6
 

6:00pm EST

Lesley January Reading Series Presents: Sharon Bryan and Rachel Kadish
Saturday January 6, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Poetry reading by Sharon Bryan, and fiction reading by Rachel Kadish, at Lesley University's Marran Theater, located at 34 Mellen Street, in Cambridge, MA.
Saturday January 6, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Marran Theater 34 Mellen St, Cambridge, MA 02138
 
Thursday, January 25
 

TBA

IAWA in Boston Presents
Thursday January 25, 2024 TBA
Readers/Speakers
Thursday January 25, 2024 TBA
I Am Books
 
Monday, January 29
 

TBA

 
Tuesday, January 30
 

TBA

Deep Curation: an experimentally curated poetry reading
Tuesday January 30, 2024 TBA
Lee Ann Brown, Sawako Nakayasu, Klara Du Plessis
with audio of Fanny Howe's poetry
in the Front Theater Space
Tuesday January 30, 2024 TBA
Boston Playwrights' Theatre 949 Commonwealth Avenue
 
Tuesday, February 6
 

TBA

Barbara Thomas
Tuesday February 6, 2024 TBA
Tuesday February 6, 2024 TBA
Andala Cafe
 
Wednesday, February 7
 

TBA

Patricia Cleary Miller
Wednesday February 7, 2024 TBA
TBA
Readers/Speakers
Wednesday February 7, 2024 TBA
TBA

TBA

Unearthed Song & Poetry
Wednesday February 7, 2024 TBA
Readers/Speakers
Wednesday February 7, 2024 TBA
Home.stead Bakery and Cafe
 
Thursday, February 8
 

TBA

 
Sunday, February 11
 

TBA

 
Monday, February 12
 

7:30pm EST

Poetry/Photo slideshow at Mass Audubon's Joppa Flats Education Center
Monday February 12, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm EST
Mass Audubon hosts The Arts and the Experience of Nature with poets Janet MacFadyen and David Davis, and photographer Stephen Schmidt. Slate Roof managing editor Janet MacFadyen and photographer Stephen Schmidt present Adrift in the House of Rock: a Praise Song for the Earth, a reading and slideshow set in the beautiful, besieged desert southwest. Their work is followed by a reading by former Poet-In-Residence at Mass Audubon's Joppa Flats, David Davis.

Bring your writing! The evening concludes with an open mic!

1 Plum Island Turnpike, Newburyport, MA

Janet MacFadyen is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Adrift in the House of Rocks (New Feral Press, 2019). Her work is forthcoming in Scientific American and has appeared in CALYX, Crannóg, Poetry, Q/A Poetry, and Terrain. Stephen Schmidt's photographs have won awards from Sierra and Earth magazines, and have appeared at the Merrill Lynch Corporate Gallery and The Arthur Griffin Center for Photographic Art. David Davis is the former Poet-In-Residence at Mass Audubon's Joppa Flats Education Center, and a member of the Powow River Poets. He is author of three poetry books, including The Joy Poems and Joppa Flats (Bard Brook Press, 2017/18).

Monday February 12, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm EST
Mass Audubon's Joppa Flats Education Center
 
Wednesday, February 14
 

TBA

 
Thursday, February 15
 

4:00pm EST

Raquel Balboni Book Launch
Thursday February 15, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm EST
Readers/Speakers
Thursday February 15, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm EST
Outpost 186
 
Friday, February 16
 

2:00pm EST

Brookline Poetry Series
Friday February 16, 2024 2:00pm - 4:00pm EST
Readers/Speakers
Friday February 16, 2024 2:00pm - 4:00pm EST
Hunneman Hall, Brookline Village Library
 
Saturday, February 17
 

TBA

Patricia Cleary Miller
Saturday February 17, 2024 TBA
Saturday February 17, 2024 TBA
Grolier Book Shop Plympton Street Cambridge
 
Sunday, February 18
 

7:00pm EST

First and Last Word Poetry Series
Sunday February 18, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Readers/Speakers
Sunday February 18, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Arts at the Armory Café
 
Monday, February 19
 

6:00pm EST

Boston Originals Series
Monday February 19, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Readers/Speakers
Monday February 19, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Woodberry Poetry Room Lamont Library, Room 330
 
Tuesday, February 20
 

TBA

 
Thursday, February 22
 

3:00pm EST

Gloria Mindock
Thursday February 22, 2024 3:00pm - 4:00pm EST
Thursday February 22, 2024 3:00pm - 4:00pm EST
Arts at the Armory/Basement B8

7:00pm EST

CANON, CANYON, CANNON: ALL BLACK EVERYTHING
Thursday February 22, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Join us for Canon, Canyon, Cannon, an evening of poetry and performance curated by Porsha Olayiwola, Boston Poet Laureate, Gardner Museum Artist-In-Residence, and Neighborhood Salon Luminary, and featuring leading local and national artists UGBA, Zenaida Peterson, Letta Neely, and Nikky Finney. These poets invite us to consider questions of influence and find new meaning through language and performance.
Thursday February 22, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum
 
Friday, February 23
 

TBA

 
Saturday, February 24
 

TBA

Blacksmith House Poetry
Saturday February 24, 2024 TBA
Readers/Speakers
Saturday February 24, 2024 TBA
Blacksmith House
 
Sunday, February 25
 

TBA

Joan Naviyuk Kane
Sunday February 25, 2024 TBA
Sunday February 25, 2024 TBA
MIT Stata Center

6:00pm EST

 
Tuesday, February 27
 

7:00pm EST

Rozzie Reads Poetry and Open Mic
Tuesday February 27, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Tuesday February 27, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Roslindale House
 
Wednesday, February 28
 

7:00pm EST

An Evening With Richard Blanco
Wednesday February 28, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Brookline-Quezalguaque Sister City Project is very proud to present “An Evening With Richard Blanco” during which he will read his poetry and share his reflections. The evening will conclude with a book-signing. All proceeds from this event will be used for our Sister City in Nicaragua to fund projects in the areas of health, education, and more. Most currently, and thanks to generous grants from the Rotary in Brookline and Rotary International, we are engaged in an enormous and life-changing clean water initiative. This October will mark Brookline’s 33rd year anniversary of this Sister City relationship with Quezalguaque.

Tickets can be bought in advance for $25 at brooklinesistercity.org or by sending a check to BQSCP, PO Box 114, Brookline, MA 02446. There will be a list of attendees who have paid in advance at the door. Tickets at the door are $30. Sponsors donating $100 or more are invited to a private reception with Richard Blanco from 6 to 6:45 p.m.

Doors will open at 6:15 and on-street parking is available, but plan to arrive early as the event begins promptly at 7.
Readers/Speakers
Wednesday February 28, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Pierce Hall, First Parish in Brookline
 
Thursday, February 29
 

6:00pm EST

A Poetry Reading with Sandra Lim
Thursday February 29, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
A Poetry Reading with Poet Sandra Lim.

The 2023-2024 New Directions in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality seminar series is a forum for discussing new interdisciplinary scholarship in the field of women, gender, and sexuality studies. This year's series focuses on Art & Politics in the Asian Diaspora. Featured talks speak to multiple academic disciplines, methods, and traditions while forging an engaged and vibrant intellectual community.
Thursday February 29, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
The Barker Center, Room 133
 
Thursday, March 7
 

7:00pm EST

March U35 Mass Poetry Reading
Thursday March 7, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST

Join us for the return of our U35 reading series on March 7th from 7:00-9:00pm at Trident Booksellers and Cafe! The U35 series seeks to promote and bolster young Massachusetts poets while giving them a venue to share their work and connect with other poets. This March, we have an exciting lineup, including Tatiana Johnson-Boria, Simone John, and Cassandra de Alba.
Tatiana Johnson-Boria (she/her) is the author of Nocturne in Joy (2023). She’s also an educator and facilitator who uses her writing practice to dismantle racism, reckon with trauma, and to cultivate healing. She’s an award-winning writer who’s received distinguished fellowships from Tin House, The Massachusetts Cultural Council, The MacDowell Residency, and others. Tatiana is also the founder of Johnson-Boria Creative, where she uses the power of creativity and coaching to help individuals and visionary organizations balance big ideas and execution, to manifest their creative dreams. 
Simone John’s poetry brings her to institutions, classrooms, and community events to read and lead discussions. Her debut full-length collection Testify, was published by Octopus Books in 2017. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College with an emphasis on documentary poetics. Simone was the recipient of the 2020 Poetry Fellowship from the Mass Cultural Council. Her work has been reviewed in PBS Newshour, Boston Globe, Bustle, Publisher’s Weekly, and elsewhere.
Cassandra de Alba is a writer living in Massachusetts. Her chapbooks are habitats (Horse Less Press, 2016), Ugly/Sad (Glass Poetry Press, 2020) and Cryptids (with Aly Pierce, Ginger Bug Press, 2020). Her work has appeared in The Shallow Ends, Big Lucks, and Wax Nine, among other publications. Visit her at cassandradealba.com.
Thursday March 7, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Trident Booksellers & Cafe
 
Wednesday, March 13
 

4:00pm EDT

Thresh & Hold
Wednesday March 13, 2024 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT

THRESH & HOLD is a book of poems re-coded into a collaborative ceremony of composed and improvisational music, dance, poetry, and short film.

“Exhausted of singing in an empire’s hopeful choir,” Dekine’s poems play with past, present, and future, all held within any moment, remembering the power of Black imagination for collective ancestral healing. Join Marlanda Dekine for an evening-length, multimedia experience centered around their forthcoming full-length debut poetry collection, Thresh & Hold (Hub City Press, 2022).

With collaborative artists Victoria Lynn Awkward (Dance), Brittany J. Green (Composer), Mahkia Greene (Film), Zahili Gonzalez Zamora (Music), and Emily Bearce (Lights).
Readers/Speakers
Wednesday March 13, 2024 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
Boston Center for the Arts
 
Thursday, March 14
 

5:00pm EDT

Poetry Salon at Beacon Hill Books
Thursday March 14, 2024 5:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
Join Beacon Hill Books for a reading with poets Octavio R. González, Liseli Fitzpatrick, and Heather Bryant!
Thursday March 14, 2024 5:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
Beacon Hill Books & Cafe

7:00pm EDT

Matthew Lippman and Jacob Strautmann
Thursday March 14, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Thursday March 14, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Brookline Booksmith

7:00pm EDT

Adam Falkner reading, "The Willies"
Thursday March 14, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
TBA
Dr. Adam Falkner is a poet, educator and arts & culture strategist. He is the author of "Adoption" (Winner of the 2017 Diode Editions Chapbook Award) and "The Willies" (forthcoming from Button Poetry, 2020), and his work has appeared in a range of print and media spaces including on programming for HBO, NBC, NPR, BET, in the New York Times, and elsewhere.

A former high school English teacher in New York City’s public schools, Adam is the Founder and Executive Director of the pioneering diversity consulting initiative, the Dialogue Arts Project, and Special Projects Director for Urban Word NYC, in which capacity he oversees the New York City Youth Poet Laureate program, and the organization’s partnerships with corporate and cultural institutions across the country. Adam has toured the United States as a guest artist, lecturer and trainer for thousands of students, educators and culture workers, and was the featured performer at President Obama’s Grassroots Ball at the 2009 Presidential Inauguration. He holds a Ph.D. in English and Education from Columbia University.
Readers/Speakers
Thursday March 14, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
TBA
 
Friday, March 15
 

7:00pm EDT

Emerson College Department of Writing, Literature & Publishing Reading Series: Special Guest Martín Espada
Friday March 15, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT

Please join the Department of Writing, Literature & Publishing for a very special event on Tuesday, March 15, 2022 at the Bill Bordy Theatre beginning at 7:00 p.m.

We are honored to be hosting the recipient of the 2021 National Book Awards 2021 for Poetry, Martín Espada. You are cordially invited to attend in-person at Bordy Theater, 216 Tremont St. or virtually. Those who cannot join us in-person are welcome to register to watch the event via livestream. If attending in-person, please complete the Covid attestation found on the Eventbrite registration page. Martín will be available to sign his book, Floaters, which we will have on sale that evening at the Bordy Theater.

Pre-registration is necessary for both in-person and virtual attendance.
Readers/Speakers
Friday March 15, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
The Bill Bordy Theatre of Emerson College
 
Monday, March 18
 

7:00pm EDT

CANCELLED - David Ferry
Monday March 18, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Monday March 18, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Suffolk University Poetry Center Sawyer Library, 3rd Floor 73 Tremont Street Boston, MA

7:00pm EDT

Poets & Plants
Monday March 18, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Monday March 18, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Pemberton Farms
 
Friday, March 29
 

4:00pm EDT

Alec Solomita and Philip Nikolayev
Friday March 29, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
Friday March 29, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
Outpost 186

4:00pm EDT

The Liminal Reading Series
Friday March 29, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
Alysia Abbott reads Steve Abbott and Jim Cory reads Karl Tierney
Readers/Speakers
Friday March 29, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
MIT Press Bookstore
 
Sunday, April 7
 

7:00pm EDT

Haleh Liza Gafori, author of Gold, with Kythe Letitia Heller at Porter Square Books: Cambridge Edition
Sunday April 7, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
Porter Square Books is delighted to welcome Haleh Liza Gafori for Gold, a new translation of Rumi that has been called "ecstatic and piercing." Gafori will be joined in conversation by writer, interdisciplinary artist, and doctoral candidate at Harvard University Kythe Letitia Heller. This event will take place in person at our Cambridge location on Thursday, April 7 at 7pm. It's free to attend, but space will be limited, so be sure to register for your free ticket below.

Rumi’s poems were meant to induce a sense of ecstatic illumination and liberation in his audience, bringing its members to a condition of serenity, compassion, and oneness with the divine. They remain masterpieces of world literature to which readers in many languages continually return for inspiration and succor, as wellas aesthetic delight. This new translation by Haleh Liza Gafori preserves the intelligence and the drama of the poems, which are as full of individual character as they are of visionary wisdom.

Marilyn Hacker praises Gafori’s new translations of Rumi as “the work of someone who is at once an acute and enamored reader of the original Farsi text, a dedicated miner of context and backstory, and, best of all, a marvelous poet in English.”

Sunday April 7, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
 
Tuesday, April 9
 

6:00pm EDT

Cathy Park Hong
Tuesday April 9, 2024 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Readers/Speakers
Tuesday April 9, 2024 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Forum Room, Lamont Library
 
Wednesday, April 10
 

6:00pm EDT

CANCELLED - Joy Harjo
Wednesday April 10, 2024 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Readers/Speakers
Wednesday April 10, 2024 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Menschell Hall Harvard Art Museums
 
Friday, April 12
 

7:00pm EDT

Erika Meitner, author of Useful Junk, and Sarah Matthes, author of Town Crier, at Porter Square Books: Cambridge Edition
Friday April 12, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
Just in time for National Poetry Month, Porter Square Books is delighted to welcome poets Erika Meitner and Sarah Matthes for a joint reading from their latest collections. Hear from Meitner's Useful Junk, lauded as "tragicomic-erotic-nostalgic with a twist of existential dread and a cherry of wit on top" and Matthes' Town Crier, a collection of Kabbalistic poems that recognize wit as a ritual of mourning and the winner of the 2020 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize.
Readers/Speakers

Friday April 12, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
 
Friday, April 19
 

4:00pm EDT

The Liminal Reading Series
Friday April 19, 2024 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
Readers/Speakers
Friday April 19, 2024 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
MIT Press Bookstore
 
Saturday, April 20
 

7:00pm EDT

Hybrid Reading Series: Rebecca Kaiser Gibson and Fred Marchant
Saturday April 20, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Please join us for our reading with Rebecca Kaiser Gibson and Fred Merchant. 

Please provide proof of vaccination at the door. Masks are required for the duration of the event.

To register to attend on Zoom, go here: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07ej31qnr71575a7af&llr=6hztvkcab
Saturday April 20, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Grolier Poetry Bookshop
 
Wednesday, April 24
 

7:00pm EDT

Memorial Reading for Jane Kenyon
Wednesday April 24, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
Wednesday April 24, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
 
Friday, April 26
 

7:00pm EDT

April U35-U18
Friday April 26, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT

To kick off our poetry programming at GrubStreet's new Center for Creative Writing, and in honor of National Poetry Month, we are bringing some of Boston's best youth voices to the Seaport for a night of words and music. You won't want to miss this one-of-a-kind, U35 through U18 extravaganza!
Friday April 26, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
GrubStreet's Center for Creative Writing
 
Sunday, April 28
 

5:00pm EDT

Robert M. Gay Memorial Lecture — Poetry Reading with Martín Espada
Sunday April 28, 2024 5:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Martín Espada, winner of the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry, will read from Floaters, his remarkable book. Cyrus Cassells: "...Espada is a fierce activist in verse, decrying, with accuracy and urgency, the depravity of inhumane detention and acute bigotry. One of America's most indelible voices, as always, Espada's poetry is lionhearted."

This event will be both in-person and on Zoom.
Sunday April 28, 2024 5:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Linda K. Paresky Conference Center at Simmons University 300 The Fenway 3rd Floor, Main College Building Boston, MA 02115
 
Tuesday, April 30
 

6:00pm EDT

 
Friday, May 3
 

7:00pm EDT

Joint Reading with Jeffrey Yang with Fanny Howe
Friday May 3, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Porter Square Books is thrilled to partner with Mass Poetry in welcoming Jeffrey Yang and Fanny Howe for a reading and conversation about the poets' latest works! Hear from Line and Light, a multifaceted collection by Jeffrey Yang, whose poetry is “flexible, expansive, sonorously clever” (The Millions), and Indivisible, the conclusion of a radically philosophical and personal series of Fanny Howe novels animated by questions of race, spirituality, childhood, transience, resistance, and poverty.
Readers/Speakers
Friday May 3, 2024 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
GrubStreet Center for Creative Writing
 
Thursday, May 16
 

7:00pm EDT

Third Thursday Poetry: Miriam Levine, Tom Driscoll, Matthew Sisson
Thursday May 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT

Miriam Levine is the author of Forget about Sleep, her sixth poetry collection, winner of the 2023 Laura Boss Narrative Poetry Award. Another collection, The Dark Opens, was chosen by Mark Doty for the Autumn House Poetry Prize. Other books include: Devotion, a memoir; In Paterson, a novel. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, and Ploughshares. Levine, a winner of a Pushcart Prize, is a fellow of the NEA and a grantee of the Massachusetts Artists Foundation. She lives in Florida and New Hampshire. For more information about her work, please go to miriamlevine.com.

Tom Driscoll is a poet, columnist, and essayist who lives and works in Lowell, Massachusetts with his wife, artist Denise Driscoll. The Champion of Doubt published summer 2023 from Finishing Line Press. PW/Booklife said about the book, “...amid the brutal truth telling, an adhesive connects all the stories, memories, and confessions: love. In Citizen Cain, Driscoll writes “Once you’ve been broken there is a different tenderness” and it’s this that allows love to thrive for the damaged person, the damaged country, the damaged world.” Driscoll’s poetry has appeared in Oddball Magazine, Carcosa Review, Scapegoat, Paterson Literary Review, and The Worcester Review.

Matthew Sisson’s poetry has appeared in journals ranging from the Harvard Review Online, to “JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association.” He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and read his work on NPR’s “On Point.” His book, Please, Call Me Moby, was published by The Pecan Grove Press, of St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas.
Thursday May 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Brookline Booksmith
 
Monday, June 10
 

7:00pm EDT

Daniel Johnson & Anthony Febo
Monday June 10, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Anthony Febo is a Puerto Rican poet, artist, and new dad living in Malden, MA. Febo has been performing and teaching poetry and theatre for over a decade in the greater Boston area. He was featured as part of WBUR’s The ARTery 25 as an artist to watch. In the classroom, Febo treats each workshop as it’s own celebration. He draws on his experiences from his time in theatre spaces, museums, non-profits, and art centers. On the stage, he has toured the country individually and as half of Adobo-Fish-Sauce: a cooking and poetry collaboration. His work examines what it means to actively choose joy in the face of what is trying to break you. Weaving performance into his writing, he examines issues such as toxic masculinity, family, culture, identity, and the role representation plays into a person’s development. His first full length book of poetry, Becoming an Island, can be purchased at Game Over Books. Visit him online at https://www.thisisfebo.com and https://adobofishsauce.com.

Daniel Johnson is the author of How to Catch a Falling Knife, published by Alice James Books. In 2018, he was commissioned to compose lines of poetry for the twin memorials honoring those killed and wounded in the Boston Marathon bombings. His writing has appeared in Tin House, The Iowa Review, The Best American Poetry, Boston Review, jubilat, and elsewhere. He recently completed his second volume of poems, Shadow Act, an Elegy for American Journalist James Foley. He currently serves as the executive director of Mass Poetry.

Registration link:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcqcOmqqD8qH9TCLl0s1RWEaXIjjlFt27wC


Facebook event:
https://www.facebook.com/events/752107948763238

Readers/Speakers
avatar for Febo

Febo

Anthony Febo is a poet, actor, youth worker, lover and friend. He founded the adult slam poetry scene in the city that birthed and raised him, Lowell, MA. He also co founded FreeVerse! a organization that works with Lowell's youth to better understand themselves through poetry. He... Read More →
Monday June 10, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Menino Arts Center
 
Wednesday, June 12
 

3:00pm EDT

Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site & New England Poetry Club
Wednesday June 12, 2024 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Magdalena Gómez is the Poet Laureate of Springfield, MA and a Poetry Fellow of the Academy of American Poets. Her poetry collection, Shameless Woman, (Red Sugarcane Press, NYC) is studied in Latinx curricula throughout the U.S. Her ground-breaking memoir noir, M’ija, will be released in hardcover in spring of 2022 by Heliotrope Books, NYC.

Enzo Silon Surin is a Haitian-born award-winning poet, educator, publisher and social advocate. He is the author of three collections of poetry, including When My Body Was A Clinched Fist (Black Lawrence Press, 2020) and A Letter of Resignation: An American Libretto (2017). He is Founding Editor and Publisher at Central Square Press and President/Executive Director at the Faraday Publishing Company, Inc. The Longfellow Summer Festival brings music, poetry, and community to the East Lawn of the Longfellow House on Sunday afternoons through the summer.

The 2022 Summer Festival will kick off on Sunday, June 5. All events are free and open to the public. Just bring a picnic blanket or lawn chair! The series is co-sponsored by the Friends of Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters and the New England Poetry Club.
Readers/Speakers
avatar for Enzo Silon Surin

Enzo Silon Surin

Editor/Publisher, Central Square Press
Enzo Silon Surin is a Haitian-born poet, publisher, advocate and author of the chapbook Higher Ground (Finishing Line Press). He was recognized in 2015 by PEN New England (New England’s chapter of PEN American Center) as a Celebrated New Voice in Poetry. His work has appeared in... Read More →
Wednesday June 12, 2024 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site
 
Tuesday, June 18
 

7:30pm EDT

Her Voice Among the Aisles: A Celebration of Emily Dickinson through Poetry & Song
Tuesday June 18, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm EDT
Emily Dickinson is largely considered one of the leading poetic voices of the 19th century. Her words have inspired many composers who have set her words to music. Annina Hsieh (soprano) and Judy Park (piano) will perform selections from Aaron Copland’s playful, tragic, personal, perennial, and ethereal song cycle Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson, as well as settings of Dickinson’s verse by other American composers. Poets Tom Daley and Cammy Thomas will recite and provide insights into the power, nuance, and beauty of Dickinson’s poetic vision.

Annina Hsieh is a Boston-based soprano and educator. Praised for her sensitivity as a performer, Hsieh strives to connect with audiences in opera and recital settings, and was the 2019 winner of the Handel and Haydn Society’s Barbara E. Maze Award for Musical Excellence. She completed her Master of Music in Voice Performance at Cleveland Institute of Music, and her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance at Ithaca College.

Leona Cheung is a Boston-based collaborative pianist. Her deep devotion to Art Song repertoire has brought her to perform in the Oxford Lieder Festival, Leeds Lieder Festival, Toronto Summer Music Festival, Franz Schubert Institut and Songfest. She earned her Master of Music and Graduate Diploma in Collaborative Piano from New England Conservatory, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from Hong Kong Baptist University.

Tom Daley is the author of the play Every Broom and Bridget—Emily Dickinson and Her Irish Servants. Tom leads workshops in poetry and in memoir writing at Lexington Community Education and elsewhere. Recipient of the Dana Award in Poetry his poetry has appeared in Harvard Review, Massachusetts Review, 32 Poems, Fence, Denver Quarterly, Crazyhorse, Barrow Street, Rhino, Prairie Schooner, Witness, and Poetry Ireland Review. Regarding his poetry collection House You Cannot Reach, Lloyd Schwartz writes, "Every line here, even—and maybe especially—in the poignant poems “spoken” by the poet’s mother, radiates his love of poetry."

Cammy Thomas’ first book of poems, Cathedral of Wish, received the 2006 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. A fellowship from the Ragdale Foundation helped her complete her second book, Inscriptions. Her third book, Tremors, came out in 2021. Her poems have recently appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, The Poetry Porch, New Orleans Review, and Poet Lore. Far Past War, a choral setting of her poems composed by her sister, Augusta Read Thomas, premiered at Washington’s National Cathedral on March 13, 2022. She lives in Bolton, MA.
Readers/Speakers
avatar for Tom Daley

Tom Daley

Instructor, Tom Daley Workshops
I lead workshops in poetry and memoir writing at community and adult education venues in the Boston area (including Boston Center for Adult Education and Lexington Community Education) and at my house in Cambridge. I am also a member of the faculty of the Online School of Poetry.I... Read More →
avatar for Cammy Thomas

Cammy Thomas

Cammy Thomas’ first book of poems, Cathedral of Wish, received the 2006 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. Both it and her second book, Inscriptions, are published by Four Way Books. A fellowship from the Ragdale Foundation helped her complete Inscriptions... Read More →
Hosts
avatar for Tom Daley

Tom Daley

Instructor, Tom Daley Workshops
I lead workshops in poetry and memoir writing at community and adult education venues in the Boston area (including Boston Center for Adult Education and Lexington Community Education) and at my house in Cambridge. I am also a member of the faculty of the Online School of Poetry.I... Read More →
avatar for Cammy Thomas

Cammy Thomas

Cammy Thomas’ first book of poems, Cathedral of Wish, received the 2006 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. Both it and her second book, Inscriptions, are published by Four Way Books. A fellowship from the Ragdale Foundation helped her complete Inscriptions... Read More →
Tuesday June 18, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm EDT
Follen Church Society
 
Tuesday, June 25
 

6:00pm EDT

The Hard Work of Hope Reading
Tuesday June 25, 2024 6:00pm - 8:30pm EDT

Shortly after COVID-19’s arrival, Mass Poetry put out a call for poems about this unprecedented moment—empty grocery store shelves, conversations across balconies, stadiums turned hospitals, civil resistance in the face of police violence, the sirens, the sirens, the sirens—and were met with an overwhelming response. Using Kathleen Aguero's potem "Hard Work" as a guide, our community rose to the challenge, helping us make a record of this pandemic life. 
We always intended to have a culminating reading, but as the weeks became months, then years, and still case numbers rise and fall, rise again—well, we're realizing there isn't going to be as clear an ending as we'd hoped. So instead we're inviting you to a kick-off celebration: a reading to mark the beginning of a year of dreaming, planning, and creating. We will host a huge community gathering at the Mass Poetry Festival in Spring 2023, and everyone who has participated (as poet, or reader) in "The Hard Work of Hope" is invited to attend. 
But for now, join us on the Summer Solstice, June 21, 2022, to celebrate the balance between light and dark, a tip, a turn toward sun and summer, and beginning again:
6:00 pm - Community gathering near the harbor
6:30 pm - Choral reading of a poem
7:00 pm - Reading on the Calderwood Stage at GrubStreet's Center for Creative Writing
Come for some, or all of the evening. For the inside portion (beginning at 7), masks will be required.
Making sure our events are accessible is a top priority: GrubStreet's building, restrooms, and the event space are wheelchair accessible. There is a hearing loop available, and we will be using a mic and doing sound checks before the event for clarity. If you require closed captioning, ASL interpreters, or have other accessibility needs we might not have thought of, please reach out to danielle@masspoetry.org. We will do our best to accommodate any and all requests.
Tuesday June 25, 2024 6:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
GrubStreet's Center for Creative Writing
 
Wednesday, July 10
 

3:00pm EDT

Longfellow Summer Poetry Festival: Martha Collins and Philip Nikolayev
Wednesday July 10, 2024 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Join us for the 2022 Longfellow Summer Poetry Festival! All events are free and open to the public - just bring a picnic blanket or lawn chair! The series is co-sponsored by the Friends of Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters and the New England Poetry Club. Visit https://www.nps.gov/long/planyourvisit/summer-festival.htm for details.

Martha Collins has published ten volumes of poetry, most recently Because What Else Could I Do (Pittsburgh, 2019), which won the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award. She has also published four volumes of co-translated Vietnamese poetry, most recently Black Stars: Poems by Ngo Tu Lap (Milkweed, 2013, with the author), and edited a number of anthologies. Her newest book of poems, Casualty Reports, is forthcoming in fall 2022.

Philip Nikolayev is a Russo-American bilingual poet living in Boston. He is a polyglot and translates poetry from several languages. Nikolayev’s verse collections include Monkey Time (Verse/Wave Books, winner of the 2001 Verse Prize) and Letters from Aldenderry (Salt). He co-edits Fulcrum, a serial anthology of poetry and critical writing. His bilingual edition, The Star of Dazzling Ecstasy: 79 Poems by Alexander Pushkin, Translated by Philip Nikolayev has been published by Tiptop Street.
Readers/Speakers
avatar for Martha Collins

Martha Collins

Martha Collins’ most recent book of poetry is Admit One: An American Scrapbook (Pittsburgh, 2016).  She has also published seven earlier volumes of poetry, including Day Unto Day (2014), White Papers (2012), and the book-length poem Blue Front (2006), as well as four collections... Read More →
Wednesday July 10, 2024 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site
 
Monday, September 16
 

7:00pm EDT

The Civic Role of Poetry: For, By & Of the People with Richard Blanco
Monday September 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Selected by President Obama as the fifth inaugural poet in U.S. history, Richard Blanco is the first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami, the negotiation of cultural identity characterizes his four collections of poetry: How To Love a Country, City of a Hundred Fires, which received the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press; Directions to The Beach of the Dead, recipient of the Beyond Margins Award from the PEN American Center; and Looking for The Gulf Motel, recipient of the Paterson Poetry Prize and the Thom Gunn Award. He has also authored the memoirs For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood, winner of a Lambda Literary Award. His inaugural poem “One Today” was published as a children’s book, in collaboration with renowned illustrator Dav Pilkey. Boundaries, a collaboration with photographer Jacob Hessler, challenges the physical and psychological dividing lines that shadow the United States. And his latest book of poems, How to Love a Country, both interrogates the American narrative, past and present, and celebrates the still unkept promise of its ideals. Blanco has written occasional poems for the re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, Freedom to Marry, the Tech Awards of Silicon Valley, and the Boston Strong benefit concert following the Boston Marathon bombings. He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and has received numerous honorary doctorates. He has taught at Georgetown University, American University, and Wesleyan University. He serves as the first Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets.
Readers/Speakers
Monday September 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Follen Church Society
 
Sunday, November 3
 

2:00pm EST

Poetry and Music at Medford Brewing Company
Sunday November 3, 2024 2:00pm - 4:00pm EST
Join the New England Poetry Club for poetry, music, and a touch of surrealism, at the Medford Brewing Company! Regie Gibson will headline the afternoon, which will also highlight NEPC member poets based in Medford. We’ll have original songs from Max Heinegg. And be prepared for the game of Exquisite Corpse.
Readers/Speakers
avatar for Julia Lisella

Julia Lisella

Poet, teacher, scholar
Julia Lisella’s three books of poetry are Our Lively Kingdom (Bordighera Press), Always (WordTech Editions), Terrain (WordTech Editions), and Love Song Hiroshima (Finishing Line Press). Her poems are widely anthologized and are forthcoming or have appeared in The Common, Ploughshares... Read More →
Sunday November 3, 2024 2:00pm - 4:00pm EST
30 Harvard Ave
 


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